


Joints

by zeldadestry



Category: NBA RPF
Genre: Community: contrelamontre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-01
Updated: 2005-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 07:50:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a hell of a thing to have Amar'e Stoudemire on your team. It is a hell of a thing to run the floor with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Joints

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE NOTE: Absolutely no disrespect intended. If you think it would offend or upset you to read a work of fiction wherein Nash and Stoudemire (and friends!) appears AS CHARACTERS, please do not read. Thank you.
> 
>  
> 
> written for the contrelamontre 'Temperature' challenge   
> And in celebration of the NBA regular season starting today! Hooray!!!

Joints. They bend and bend and bend over and over again. Bend, straighten, bend, straighten, and the Suns are running down the court. Ahead of him, Steve sees the defenders spreading into their coverage. He feels someone traveling beside him, to his right. It’s Kurt Thomas and Steve launches one of his no-look, behind the back, passes slightly ahead, to the spot where Kurt should be. Kurt reaches for it, but he doesn’t even brush it with his fingertips. The ball bounces out of bounds and Steve stands with his hands on his hips, gnawing his lip, while someone retrieves it. Fucking turnover. He’s told himself he’s going to suck it up. This is the situation and bitching about it isn’t going to help. This is the situation they’re in and he has to accept it. He’s given himself a lot of bullshit pep talks, but they obviously haven’t sunk in, because right now as he stares down at the polished floor, all he’s thinking is that Amar'e would have known what to do. Amar'e would have accelerated just the slightest bit to catch the pass, no doubt charging to the basket with the ball and slamming it through. Amar'e would have caught that pass.

It is a hell of a thing to have Amar'e Stoudemire on your team. It is a hell of a thing to run the floor with him.

Amar'e’s on the bench, watching, and Steve sits down next to him when he’s taken out of the game. “Hey,” he says.

Amar'e nods. “Hey, my man.”

“How you doing?”

“You know how it is. This season was supposed to be it. We were gonna go to the Finals.”

“We still might.” Amar'e just shrugs, beats out a rhythm of frustration with his feet. Steve looks at the knee, at the mound of it underneath the white slacks. Such a small thing, he thinks. Such a small little tear and he sits here watching instead of being out there running.

At the end of the game, they’ve won and the crowd is cheering. Steve takes it in for a moment. What are people looking for in athletes? What are they really selling at the end of the day? Is it entertainment or is it some sort of fairy tale that promises a strong body means never faltering, never breaking? His back is killing him and he leaves the court quickly.

Amar'e’s in ESPN the Magazine, photographed for their “Hot” issue. Someone’s taped the picture up in the treatment room as a joke. After the trainer’s done with him, Steve goes over to take a look. It’s a good picture. Amar'e’s got his shirt off, his tats on full display, and even though Steve sees him like this all the time, he never looks. Now he’s able to stare and slowly read two of the lines on Amar'e’s chest, above his left nipple. “God blessed the child that can hold his own,” it says in script. Amar'e’s arms wrap around his body like he’s trying to protect himself, yet his expression is stoic. Steve notices that the photograph was taken by a woman. He’s not surprised. She made Amar'e look beautiful. He tears the page off the wall because he wants to have it.

“In high school, when I had no place to go, I slept on people’s couches,” Amar'e said one day after practice as they were dressing, playing with the platinum and diamond bracelet on his wrist. “And now I’m the man who had a hundred million dollar summer.”

Where would they be if they hadn’t held their own? They wouldn’t be here, that was for damn sure. They had to create themselves. Everything they were they had to do on their own. Were they talented? Yeah, but no one gave you shit because of that. Every single day on the hardwood, proving it to yourself, to everyone around you.

Something happens out on the court. Every time he and Dirk and Michael Finley were out there, it always felt like it was going to go on forever. Every time last season when he let go of the ball and he just knew Amar'e was going to catch it, was going to drive to the hoop, unstoppable, even against Duncan, scoring at will, it always seemed like it was just one more time in an endless pattern, an endless succession.

God blessed the child that can hold his own. That’s what it said on Amar'e’s chest. And they had, they had held their own every time someone told them it wasn’t possible, that they would never have their dream.

And there Amar'e had been for one season, for that fucking series against San Antonio when it had felt like it was just the two of them. No one else was stepping up, it was just Nash and Stoudemire against the whole of the Spurs, and Amar'e had been the king, right then. In those five games no one could touch him.

The tear is so small. And yet he sits, probably for the whole season, though no one wants to admit it.

And the big bad not-so-secret everyone’s got on their mind? That he will never really be the same, like other players who have had the same procedure. That last year was it, the brightest and most dominant he would ever be.

The Suns are running again. Nash is running down the court, he’s running down the court, and even though the Warriors obviously think he’s going to pass to Shawn Marion down in the paint, he sees from the way Raja Bell’s moving that he can catch him in the corner and give him a chance for an uncontested three. He doesn’t think these things, he just knows them, and in a split second implements the plan, firing the ball past the defender and through to Raja, who catches, takes a moment to get his eye fixed on the rim, and shoots. The shot goes in and the whistle blows, Golden State calling for a time out. Nash high fives Raja as they head over to the bench.

There’s dozens of moments like this, he thinks, every game. It’s a dance he’s orchestrating and when he’s on, when the team is on, it really is just coasting, effortless. The rush is still there, and he wonders if Amar'e can feel it too, sitting on the bench, or is he cut off from it? He looks sullen, frowning down at his own hands laced together in his lap. Steve sits down next to him, just for a breather, and the huddle clusters around while Coach D’Antoni diagrams on his white board. The whistle sounds again, and Steve gives Amar'e a little tap on the knee, not the hurt one, and smiles at him before heading back to the court.

Joints, he thinks, as they set up their defense for the inbound pass. They hold everything together. They bring together two separate entities and link them into one. The pass is a bad one and Raja manages to steal the ball and hand it off to Steve. Fast break. They’re running again. They’re running and everything that holds them together is so vulnerable, but when they’re playing it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the game.


End file.
